 James
E. Kostrava is President and Owner of Funding Freedom, an
organizational management and fund raising firm, and is the
Communications Leader for GANTEC Advance, LLC, a natural products
biotechnology company in the MidMichigan Innovation Center in Midland,
Michigan.
From 2007 to 2010 he served as Executive Vice
President of MITECH+, Inc., a non-profit organization located in
Midland, Michigan that promotes skilled trades and technical careers.
Mr. Kostrava served as the President & CEO of the Mt. Pleasant Area
Chamber of Commerce in Mt. Pleasant, Michigan, from 2004 to 2007.
From
2000 to 2002 he served as vice president for external relations for the
Foundation for Economic Education (FEE), Irvington-on-Hudson, New York.
FEE is the oldest free-market educational organization in the world.
From
1995 to 2000 Mr. Kostrava served as vice president for development for
the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, an independent, non-profit
research and educational organization located in Midland, Michigan. The
Mackinac Center is the largest of the 38 state-focused free-market
public policy research institutes in the United States, and it is
considered to be one of the most influential. Immediately prior to
joining the Mackinac Center he served as executive director of the
President's Club for the Oakland University Foundation in Rochester,
Michigan.
Mr. Kostrava spent 13 years of his career at the
Construction Association of Michigan in Bloomfield Hills where he was
vice president - marketing. In that position, he was chairman and
founder of the Design & Construction Expo, now the largest
construction exposition and trade show in the Midwest.
Mr.
Kostrava earned his bachelor of arts degree in Advertising from
Michigan State University in 1975. In 1983 he attended the Graduate
School of Business Administration, MBA program, at the University of
Detroit.
In 1990 he earned distinction as a Certified
Association Executive through the American Society of Association
Executives in Washington, D.C. Less than ten percent of association
executives throughout the United States hold this certification. In
1991 he earned a Certificate of Achievement: Principles, Techniques of
Fund Raising, at Indiana University - Purdue University at Indianapolis.
Mr.
Kostrava serves on Occupational Advisory Board of Mid-Middle Community
College and is on the Board of Advisors of the Africa Food Abundance
Fund. He is a member of the American Society of Association Executives.
He is a founding director and Board Member Emeritus for the
Construction Innovation Forum and past Chairman of the Construction
Activities Committee of the Engineering Society of Detroit.
“…I apologize
for writing you such a long letter, but I simply did
not have the time to write you a short one.” -- George
Bernard Shaw
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